Greater Tokyo and the Akihabara Temple

Dec 14, 2005

Desi had to fly home today, so Rumi took her to the airport while Heath dropped off Jason and I at the train station. We took the train in to Greater Tokyo and the Akihabara Temple area. It was amazing!

There were literally hundreds of people filling the area around the tourist booths all up and down the walkways between the street and the temple buildings. I adored all the pagoda roofs, and original statuary. Jason showed me how to correcly purify with the incense and water from the fountain before going inside the temple. I was surprised to see how honest and open religion was for the worshippers there. Nobody made fun of anyone as they dipped the ladel and washed their hands. Nobody laughed or pointed, or whispered behind their hands. There was true respect between the people, whether they were there to worship or simply there as tourists.

Inside the temple was an amazingly beautiful room, which unfortunately had to be barriered off from visitors due to the amount of gold and gold filigree throughout. We tossed our coins into the enormous freestanding collection box and stepped back out into the sunlight once more.

We walked around the gardens for awhile, noticing all the prayer notes tied high up in the branches of beautiful trees. Something else that caught my attention was the way that the Japanese clothed the statues around the temple gardens. Jason explained that they believed there were spirits in the statues, and that the clothing is a way of honoring and giving consideration to the spirits. (If you click on the picture you can see a close up of these two statues wearing warm red bibs)

We stopped to buy our own prayer note on our way back towards the railway and I adored the way that they had it set up. You picked up a box full of marked sticks and shook it a few times, then reached inside and pulled out a stick. You looked at the markings on the stick and then found the matching markings on a drawer along the wall. You open the drawer and receive a small prayer roll. Each stick is different and will give you a different prayer. You pay for your prayer and are supposed to tie it onto a prayer string nearby, despite all the prayers we saw tied in the trees.

On the way home we stopped and just talked for awhile at Starbucks. It was a perfect day!


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